In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it… Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty- he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world- alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty. —Friedrich Nietzsche
The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men —John Henry Newman
Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century. —Salman Rushdie
ϟ Stendhal Syndrome
def. a psychosomatic response—tachycardia, vertigo, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations—when the ‘victim’ is exposed to particularly beautiful, or large amounts of, art in a single place— the response can also occur when a person is overwhelmed by breathtaking natural beauty
